Demystifying the Elderly Sex ... Video Transcript

Participants

Patricia Bloom MD, David Kaufman MD, Dagmar O'Connor PhD, Mark Pochapin MD, Chi Chau MD

Summary

In many people's eyes, advanced age and sexual intimacy go together like milk and orange juice. But sexuality can be an important part of any loving relationship, no matter how old you are. Join our panel of experts as they discuss popular misconceptions about elder sexuality, as well as why -- and how -- they should change.

Webcast Transcript

MARK POCHAPIN, MD: Hi, welcome to our webcast. I'm Dr. Mark Pochapin, and we're going to discuss some of the issues that people have when they get older. But we're not talking about arthritis or chronic lung disease. We're talking about having sex, that is, sex in the elderly. It's really something that doesn't get much attention, but needs to be addressed, because there are new drugs now that are available, and there are things both physiologic and psychosocial, that need to be addressed with people as they get older and start engaging again in sex.

Today I have with us some expert panelists. Sitting to my left is Dr. David Kaufman. He's an assistant professor of clinical urology at Columbia University. Welcome, David. Sitting next to David is Dr. Patricia Bloom. She's Chief of Geriatric Medicine at St. Luke's/Roosevelt Hospital in New York City, with us here today. Thank you, Pat. Sitting next to Pat is Dr. Dagmar O'Connor, who is a psychologist, a sex therapist, and the first woman sex therapist to be trained by Masters and Johnson in New York City. Welcome. Appreciate you all with us.

Let's talk about what it means to demystify sex in the elderly. This is not something that gets a lot of attention. David, is it okay for elderly people to have sex?

DAVID KAUFMAN, MD: By all means. I think an important point to make just has to do with an anthropological approach to sex. If we go back in history and we look at other societies, we know that in ancient Egypt, there are hieroglyphics galore, which dealt with sex and sexual positions and sexual issues and sexual problems. The Greeks and the Romans, it's obvious sex was a big part of their society. It's really only our society today, until recently, that sex has been mystified and not spoken about. And it's really only within the last few years that sex is something that is coming on to the open market, that we have television advertisements talking about celebrities who are having sexual problems. So I think we've come a long way in the last few years, and that allows us to have webcasts such as this, which can really help demystify sex for everybody.

MARK POCHAPIN, MD: Pat, are there any benefits in particular that having sex, as someone gets older, that can be seen? Or is it something that you have to worry about with your health?

PATRICIA BLOOM, MD: Absolutely not. There are a lot of benefits to being sexually active, if one wants to be sexually active. I think a lot of this comes down to an individual approach, and what the person perceives of for themselves. But certainly being physically active is beneficial. There's a suggestion that sexual activity is one of those stimulating kinds of activities that may promote brain function in elderly people. There's even some data to suggest that men who have many orgasms may live a longer life, although I suspect that what's really true is that men that are healthy enough to be very sexually active, don't have underlying severe diseases, and therefore do live a longer life. I don't think that the sex causes you to live longer, but I think it's correlated with living longer. So that the physical contact, but then we're talking about couples. We must also remember that so many of the eldery are singles and they're out dating.

I was just reading a study the other day that the fastest growing HIV group is women, single women over 50. Now, that tells us that these women may not talk about sex, they may be inhibited. And it's important that this is spoken about, but I think society is being very abusive towards the elderly population when it comes to sex.